Tie Ning - The Bathing Women

Tiao said, “I did have a straw hat like that. Linen ribbon printed with Persian chrysanthemums. I don’t know if you like Persian chrysanthemums, but I do. The first time I saw some was at the Martyrs’ Cemetery at Fuan when I was still in elementary school. On Tomb-Sweeping Day each year, our school would organize us to sweep the Martyrs’ Cemetery. We carried homemade wreaths, walked a long way, breathing the dust all the way to the Martyrs’ Cemetery located in the outskirts of the city, and dedicated the wreaths to the martyrs. Then we would listen to the guide talk about the heroic deeds of those martyrs in the tombs.

“I remember once a young woman guide took us to a white marble tomb where a heroine of the war against Japan was buried. Betrayed by a collaborator, she was captured by the Japanese. They scooped out her breasts, and, to stop her angry curses, cut out her tongue as well. The guide was very young and looked almost like a middle school student. To this day I still remember how round her face was, and that round face didn’t match the somber atmosphere there. She started her introduction. ‘Students …’ she said. ‘Students …’ she said again, and then she began to laugh. It was shocking that she could laugh on such a solemn occasion. She laughed very hard, the kind of laughter that sounded almost like crying, her voice getting higher and higher and her shoulders shaking. She couldn’t control herself. Neither my classmates nor I laughed, and our teachers didn’t, either. We had been taught long before that laughter was forbidden in the Martyrs’ Cemetery. We were all very disciplined in this regard, and some in the class would even arrange their sad expressions in advance. Everyone was frightened by her laughter, seized by a feeling of impending disaster. Our teacher found the director of the cemetery, who took the guide, still in the grip of hysterical laughter, away.

“Later, we heard from our teacher that the guide had been charged with antirevolutionary activity and sentenced to prison. How dare she laugh in front of the martyr’s tomb? When I thought back on the incident as an adult, I supposed her mind must have been in a highly nervous state. She must have taken her job so seriously and wanted to do it so well that she began to laugh right at the most inappropriate moment. Just as in school: The more we told ourselves not to make mistakes in our presentations, the more likely it was that we would say something wrong. We were afraid we might even shout out antirevolutionary slogans at critical moments. Another guide, an old man, took over. Standing at the heroine’s tomb, we listened to the touching story of the martyr. It was at that moment I noticed several Persian chrysanthemums in front of the tomb, but they were not real, since they don’t bloom in April. Who dedicated these flowers to the war heroine, and why choose Persian chrysanthemums? Was it because the martyr had liked the flower when she was alive? I liked them, too, with their long stems and simple petals. Later, when I saw real Persian chrysanthemums on some old obscure graves in the west mountain area of Fuan, I also liked their frail but independent posture. I thought about the heroine in the Martyrs’ Cemetery, whom I always confused with the girl guide with the round face. Because the two were mixed up in my mind, sometimes I would imagine that the round-faced guide was the war heroine who had leaped out of the tomb, leaped out and laughed, with slender Persian chrysanthemums growing on her head. I liked the straw hat I used to have. Do you know what it felt like when you wore it? I felt I was gliding over the ground like someone from the tomb, soundless, invisible to people except for the fully blooming Persian chrysanthemums. You said it so well, crowned with Persian chrysanthemums. Tell me, doesn’t every one of us have a day when we are crowned with Persian chrysanthemums? When we are crowned with Persian chrysanthemums, do we still merely walk? What do you think?”

Wan Meicheng listened to Tiao talk about Persian chrysanthemums with fascination. It was the first time that Tiao had spoken about herself and her childhood, which Wan Meicheng took as a friendly gesture. She didn’t mean to express hostility to Tiao in any way. When crowned with Persian chrysanthemums, did we still merely walk? Wan Meicheng didn’t know and had never thought about it. She said, “I don’t know, but on that Sunday, when I saw you were crowned with Persian chrysanthemums, I was determined to buy the same straw hat.

“Chen Zai came upstairs and I returned to the room from the balcony. I said nothing about you, and neither did he. We drove home in the evening and I sat in the place where you had sat. Your breath and scent still seemed to linger in the air. I simply closed my eyes and said nothing. Chen Zai asked me if I was ill and I said no. We got home, took a shower, went to bed, and made love. He was very aggressive, unusually aggressive. Everything seemed different from before, and I even started to imagine he was about to give me a child. Please give me a child. Oh, please let me conceive a child! I tried especially hard to please him to get him to do what I wanted. Both of us said embarrassing things that we normally wouldn’t say. When I got very excited and was about to come, he suddenly called, ‘Tiao, Tiao—’”

Tiao interrupted Wan Meicheng and said, “Please don’t go on.”

Wan Meicheng said, “Don’t interrupt me. I have to get this out. He called out ‘Tiao, Tiao,’ which saddened me to the point of desperation. But do you know what? I murmured back to him anyway. It wasn’t that I was utterly without pride; I still had the delusion that if he really thought I was you at that moment, maybe he would let me have his child … But I failed again. He realized his slip of the tongue and was embarrassed about it. My biggest achievement that night was that I confirmed you were the lover in his heart, you, crowned with Persian chrysanthemums.

“I sat in front of the mirror and looked at my face; I pulled the fringe off my forehead and to the back. I wanted to change my hairstyle. I wanted to cut my shoulder-length hair and expose the nape of my neck. Tiao, you were my archenemy, but how I wanted to become you. One day I put on the same kind of straw hat, the exact same skirt you had worn on that Sunday, and sat in the room waiting for Chen Zai to come home. He was truly stunned when he came back, and then said, ‘What is this all about?’ That’s what I wanted to tell you, Tiao. I’m a complete failure. How is it possible for me to really become you? You ruined my life, after all. But I want you to know that I don’t hate you now, because I love Chen Zai, and if I love him, I should love whom he loves — which is a very difficult task. But if I can do it, then I’m a winner. I am trying to get close to you. Please let me.”

Chen Zai’s return interrupted their meetings. Excitedly, he told Tiao that he had ordered a set of Swedish kitchen appliances, very practical, the dishwasher came with a garbage disposal, and Tiao was going to love it. He kissed her and asked how things were at home and was there any news? Tiao said everything was fine and nothing had happened. She twined her arms around Chen Zai’s neck and draped herself against his body, listening, mesmerized, to his quickening breath, and she concealed her meetings with Wan Meicheng.

She found indescribable excitement in her secret. She was not sure what to do yet, but Wan Meicheng’s unexpected frankness and sincerity attracted her.

That summer, Tiao called Wan Meicheng behind Chen Zai’s back. This time she initiated the appointment. She invited Wan Meicheng to meet at Youyou’s Small Stir-Fry so that she could treat her to a meal there. She didn’t know whether she wanted to use the occasion to seduce Wan Meicheng into more talk about her past with Chen Zai, to show her sincere gratitude to Wan Meicheng for her openness, or to hope that everything would stop right there. Even though neither had any ill intentions, there seemed to be the threat of turmoil beneath the surface.